For the European, even today, America represents something akin to exile, a phantasy of emigration and, therefore, a form of interiorization of his or her own culture._ j e a n Baudrillard, AmericaOur present age is one of exile.-Julia Kristeva, "A New Type of Intellectual"The d e m a n d to recognize an irreducible presence of the Other in
A m e r i c a n literary h i s t o r y h a s b r o u g h t a b o u t qualifications or the substitution of " A m e r i c a n " with ethnic-specific adjectives, leading to d i s t i n c t i o n s b e t w e e n , for i n s t a n c e , A f r i c a n A m e r i c a n ,A m e r i c a n Indian, Asian American, Chicano, Hispanic, and Puerto Rican literat u r e . Redefining American Literary History, e d i t e d b y A . L a V o n n e B r o w n Ruoff and Jerry W. Ward, Jr. (1990), m a y serve as a typical exa m p l e of r e c e n t critical a n t h o l o g i e s of A m e r i c a n l i t e r a t u r e . A n d , a l t h o u g h in the critical/theoretical debate on the m e a n i n g of " e t hnic," a broad spectrum of positions could be m a p p e d , in anthologies a n d histories of A m e r i c a n literature " E u r o p e a n ethnics" are almost n e v e r m e n t i o n e d {The Heath Anthology of American Literature, 1990, edited b y Paul Lauter being an exception). F r o m the perspective of a E u r o p e a n academic interested in American literature, this predominant absence of the category of European American literature is quite baffling. E v e n if the ideological motives behind this recoil from Euroc e n t r i s m m a y b e u n d e r s t a n d a b l e a n d e v e n desirable, s o m e of the u n s p o k e n a s s u m p t i o n s b e h i n d it strike m e as p r o b l e m a t i c . W h a t bothers m e m o s t is the implied h o m o g e n i z a t i o n of E u r o -A m e r i c a n literature. I think that the assumptions informing this unitary perception of Euro-American literature need careful reexamination. In what follows, however, I will only v e r y briefly outline a few general and